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President says anti-globalization sentiments from left and right ‘a big mistake’

President Obama, in an interview with WSJ’s Jerry Seib, made his case for the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership warning that if the U.S. doesn’t enact a free-trade deal with Asia, then China will write the rules in that region. Photo: T.J. Kirkpatrick for The Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama, facing a bitter struggle within his own party on trade policy, warned that China would step into the economic vacuum the U.S. would create if it fails to complete and enact a free-trade deal with Asia.

“If we don’t write the rules, China will write the rules out in that region,” Mr. Obama said in an interview Monday with The Wall Street Journal. “We will be shut out—American businesses and American...